It was the stuff of anti-GMO activists’ dreams: A “peer-reviewed” paper, published in a scientific-looking journal with an impressive title, detailing how a large survey of more than 3,000 people showed major health improvements among those who gave up GMO foods.
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According to the Genetic Literacy Project: “Other than his time as a professional swing dance instructor, Jeffrey Smith has been a political activist, marketing and business development director, and issues activist/author oriented around ventures linked to the multi-billion dollar Maharishi Institute religion and has no other reported science education background or other credentials.”
Smith’s “research” involved him emailing a questionnaire to 180,716 people on the mailing list of his Institute for Responsible Technology….
Using this splendidly biased sample of respondents — all of whom had presumably been regularly subjected to Smith’s own anti-GMO propaganda by virtue of being on his email list — Smith gathered results purporting to show health improvements among those who had given up GMO foods.
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Related on the SLP
“This is not how I wanted to spend my birthday,” complained Dr. Alison Van Eenennaam when I asked her to take a look at Jeffrey Smith’s paper.
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“Reading that paper was one of the most painful intellectual experiences of my life,” she said.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Anti-GMO former dance instructor Jeffrey Smith writes ‘scientific paper’
